11 weapons from pop culture we could totally use right now

DARPA does a great job of designing new and exciting weapons for the military. But here are 11 weapons from movies and video games that the U.S. fighting forces would like to see rolling out of a DARPA lab soon.

1. Iron Man’s shoulder-mounted guns

https://youtu.be/DTqa-NEwUbs?t=1m34s

Iron Man’s shoulder-mounted guns each have six barrels filled with rounds that can curve in flight and are linked up to a targeting system that can differentiate between friend, foe, and civilian. Basically, every infantryman in urban combat could walk through a city slaying bad guys and accepting the praise of grateful survivors.

2. Noisy cricket

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTqxFIpc1j4

Sure, it’s small and causes a lot of collateral damage. But, it packs a huge punch in a tiny fist. It could be used for two purposes. First, troops assigned to public positions like embassy guard could conceal the weapons on their body, allowing them to appear lightly armed while they secretly have direct fire artillery in their pockets. Second, it could be used as a breaching tool.

3. Lawgiver Pistol

Photos: Youtube

Capable of firing everything from normal rounds to grenades to nonlethal munitions, the Lawgiver pistol is part of why Dredd is such a badass. For soldiers in the field, this would provide a wide variety of force options in a very small package. Also, they have a very strong anti-theft mechanism.

In the cons column, it has to be hard to safely run ranges with weapons like this.

4. Sonic Shotgun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8deYjcgVgm8&feature=youtu.be&t=1m33s

One of the most effective nonlethal weapons on this list, the sonic shotgun can hurl bad guys a dozen feet back, charges quickly, and is apparently easy to aim from the hip.

5. Laser Rifles

Pick your brand (Star Wars, Halo, whatever), laser rifles would provide most of the capabilities of standard rifles, plus they would melt right through enemy armor. Just don’t give us the ones that Stormtroopers use. They are way too inaccurate.

6. Phaser

Photo: flickr.com/Ryan Somma

It’s like a laser rifle, but you can choose “stun” and “disintegrate” as firing modes.

7. Cerebral Bore

https://youtu.be/Jp3xSsvFNQQ?t=4s

The cerebral bore is not only a rifle with homing rounds, it also marks enemies in hiding and its rounds make their way through enemy flesh, seeking out the brain and exploding within it.

8. Mjolnir (but a gun)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou4yoD-9wL8

Thor’s mighty hammer gives the ability to fly, which would be great. More importantly though, it can only be lifted by the worthy. That would mean that when friendly positions are overrun, weapons that are abandoned couldn’t be turned around and used against the original owners.

9. ZF-1

Photo: Youtube.com

Like the Lawgiver pistol, the ZF-1 allows its users to select between a wide range of munitions including missiles and nets. The ZF-1 is larger since it’s a rifle/flamethrower, but soldiers will likely find a way to carry the extra weight in exchange for gaining the ability to shoot flames and darts when necessary.

10. Lightsabers

Not for the purpose you think. It’s unlikely troops could be properly trained to handle lightsabers well enough to fight with them and they definitely couldn’t deflect bullets with them. However, the sabers could be used by anti-tank teams to crack into enemy armor as well as by engineers to cut through absolutely any enemy defenses. The safety training Powerpoint for these would be hell though.

Runner up for these purposes: Wolverine’s claws. They’re even more portable than a lightsaber and would be nearly impossible to lose, but soldiers without genetic healing mutations would bleed just, all the time.

11. Plasmids

https://youtu.be/-hSutmqrYXQ?t=29s

From the hit video game Bioshock, plasmids give the user the ability to fire flames from their hands, suck health from enemies, and even mind control enemies.

Of course, the weapon developers would need to solve the whole, “insanity” thing that goes along with most plasmids, but that’s probably do-able.